


Snippets From the Wayward Wastelanders

by ghostchibi



Series: Wayward Wastelanders [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Fallout (Video Games), Mass Effect
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:25:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1878102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostchibi/pseuds/ghostchibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short fics written per prompts about the characters of the Wayward Wastelanders universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aria and Flemeth

**Author's Note:**

> These fics are mostly about the characters themselves. These will tend to be more serious and less crack-y, although do expect it to go completely unserious from time to time.
> 
> Each chapter is a fic. The title of the chapter is the prompt which I wrote based on.

Aria’s the boss of things, in the town nearest to the two gangs’ hideouts. Omega is every bit worse than the gangs could probably ever be, and even the Wardens don’t touch it even though they probably desperately want to. Maybe it’s because they know that it’s too dangerous, or maybe because they know that Omega’s vices and villainy stay firmly within Omega’s borders. Either way, Aria runs the joint. She owns the bar, the biggest attraction in Omega. She keeps tabs on all the stores, and decides who does and doesn’t get to do business. Her henchmen are Omega’s security force. Her money keeps all the generators running, and she’s got no shortage of caps or manpower.

Flemeth, on the other hand, is the boss of things in a very different sense. Nobody steps foot into the Korcari Lands, where trees and plant life flourish despite the intense radiation of the area and strange, mutated creatures lumber about. If the radiation doesn’t kill you, then the animals (and possibly the plants) surely will. Nobody’s sure how anyone can survive in a place like that, and yet Flemeth thrives there. Some say that she’s some sort of witch. Others say that she drags off men from the barbaric Chasind raider gang, eating them or using them as slaves or practicing horrific experiments on them and letting them back loose into the Korcari Lands.


	2. Morrigan and Morinth

The only human to ever walk out of the Korcari Lands fully human. But some say that’s debatable. She might be aiding the Wardens, but she’s certainly no Warden herself. The daughter of Flemeth of the Korcari Lands, just as quick-witted and sharp-tongued as her mother, and possibly just as dangerous. She simply chooses not to rain death and destruction onto the people around her, she says, and rest assured she’s very much capable of doing it if that were what she pleased. It’s a good thing she’s near the Wardens then, because otherwise there would be a very long trail of blood and body parts in her wake.

Unfortunately, Morinth is what Morrigan would be, had she not decided that it was simply too much work to destroy everything in sight. She travels from place to place, never staying for very long. She’s beautiful, and she knows how to use that against people. She’s the kind of beautiful that drags people in, entrances them, makes them want to do anything for her. _Anything_. And so they end up with slashed throats or bullets to brains, and a completely cleaned out house with no trace of the murderer and thief. Morinth claims victim after victim this way, and nobody can stop her.


	3. A Nug and a Pyjak

Sub-terrainean bunny-pigs, Leliana called them. To be fair, it was a rather accurate description. They were like mole rats, just without the nasty teeth and territoriality and with longer ears and a nose that made rather loud snuffling, wuffling noises. Far more pleasant than mole rats generally, although they did make the same sort of noise. Leliana kept one as a pet, and Sten and Oghren constantly berated her on keeping vermin. Let her keep a nug and she’ll come back with a fire ant at her feet begging to keep that too, Oghren complained, although the Warden-Commander was quick to point out that the worst that a nug could do was chew through someone’s socks, while a fire ant was far more likely to burn everything in sight.

Pyjaks were as a whole nothing but trouble They climbed all over buildings, stole things, and then had the audacity to jump on your face when you shot at them. Sure, they were cute (compared to other wasteland critters, at least), but the fact that they were cute was not enough to outweigh the fact that they were the biggest pain in everyone’ ass. For some reason Wrex and Grunt thought that they were great for food, and on more than one occasion Wrex had dared Grunt to bite off a pyjak’s head. That, of course, lead to a whole lot of blood, caps exchanged between a laughing Super Mutant and a laughing, blood-drenched Super Mutant, and a very stern-looking Shepard.


	4. Alistair and Tali, Two Members of Royalty (Sort Of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This turned out to be less "members of royalty" and more "had respected fathers" as that was the closest I could think of to royalty/power for this setting.

Alistair and Tali were both surprised to find that they were both originally Californians. Neither thought that anyone else was crazy enough to make the trek from their original home, and yet both the Warden-Commander and Shepard joked that they were both just the right kind of crazy to try it.

Their fathers were both NCR officers. While Tali had fond memories of her father, Alistair had very little to speak of. Both were killed in action while fighting off Caesar’s Legion, and both had tried to follow their fathers’ footsteps. Neither were happy with it. Alistair had been deployed in the Mojave, but he’d quickly grown disillusioned with the NCR after seeing much of the resentment of the locals. He could sympathize, and so after a short two years he quit. Tali was one of the few who stayed within NCR borders, desperate for a taste of the fighting of the Mojave. But the drunken cursing of one battle-weary NCR soldier returning from the Mojave put a significant dampen on her spirits. He spoke of hopelessness, of resentment, of outright corruption, and of certain death.

"You’re a bright kid," the alcoholic soldier had told her. "Don’t let them send you out there to die."

"What should I do then?" she’d asked desperately.

"Leave. That’s what I’m doing."

"Fine then. I’ll leave, if you stop drinking. You’re in here almost every day. I see you."

"I sober up, you don’t get killed. Sounds like a deal to me."

(Years later, neither Alistair nor Tali realized that they had significantly affected each other’s lives.)


	5. Samara/Sten Friendship

The Normandy gang seemed to know Samara. At least, some of them did. Sten considered this reason enough to keep an eye on the bounty hunter, although as he learned more about her the less he felt the need for concern.

(Some concern was always necessary though for people who seemed to be in positive standing with either of the gangs.)

She wasn’t a bounty hunter, at least not in the normal sense. It was simply easier to explain herself as one, as otherwise people might question why she was running after a serial killer, no less her own daughter. Very few people knew of this; among the Wardens, only the Warden-Commander and Sten knew. And Sten knew because she had told him, had trusted him enough to tell him so.

Having someone’s trust was a very strange feeling for Sten. He’d always been mistrusted for being a Super Mutant. But perhaps Samara had trusted him because she was a ghoul, and she knew of distrust and hostility.

Her trust was not misplaced. Sten told her that if he ever saw Morinth, that he would do everything in his power to stop her. And Samara had smiled and patted his broad shoulder, before disappearing out into the wasteland again for clues.


	6. Bethany and Kaidan

The Champion’s little sister, and the overworked doctor and personal close friend of the Commander. Two highly unlikely friends, and that wasn’t just because they belonged to two rival gangs.

The bit about being close to said gangs leaders didn’t help matters either, but these days the cease-fire had settled into somewhat of an amicable agreement and most “aggressions” were due to Jack or Isabela defacing the other gang’s bunker. It certainly made it easier for the two of them to talk, although Kaidan was entirely certain that Ashley still kept her sniper rifle trained on them both no matter how much Kaidan had told her it was completely unnecessary.

They talked about anything and everything. A few times Kaidan tried to teach Bethany a little bit about medicine and first aid, because he knew rather well that Anders was the only doctor the Misfits had and he wouldn’t stop complaining about the sheer number of injuries he had to take care of versus the number of hands he had. Bethany tried her hardest (bless her heart, did she try) but it frustrated her to no end when she could never quite get the hang of it. But, as they found out completely on accident one day, she was very good at making medication. Kaidan taught her how to make Stimpaks out of broc flower, xander root, a syringe, and a bit of this and that, and at their next meeting the next week Bethany came sprinting over excitedly explaining that she had managed to make a more potent form out of  _mutfruit and Nuka-Cola_  of all things.

She had looked so proud, and even with the slight sickness that the more potent Stimpaks caused, Kaidan considered it a great success.


	7. Merrill and Thane, So Used to Living for Other People

Merrill knew rejection very well. All she’d ever done her whole life was try and help. She desperately recorded and hoarded every bit of pre-War information she could find, rescuing faded and torn stacks of pre-War bills from trash cans and pouring over burnt books praying that maybe one or two pages were still salvageable. And yet she was mocked for it, and when she finally started to delve into old military projects, she was outright criticized. She knew what she was doing, she really did. She wasn’t going to make super-soldier serums, or start experimenting on people! But slowly people lost their trust in her, and when Hawke had asked her if she wanted to come with, she agreed. Leaving behind her home was hard, but she had a place where she was accepted now.

Thane knew regret very well. He spent so much time fighting, trying to keep his family safe. So much time and distance he had put between them, and it was that time and distance so far away from his family that led to their loss. His wife was dead because of his actions, and because he was never there. His young son despised him for not being there to protect her. He had no family, as he had spent too much time trying to protect them. The wasteland taught him a harsh lesson, as it always had. A scoop of sand in the palm of your hand would not stay if your hand was held in a fist, nor if your hand was spread out. It would only stay if you kept your hand scooped, close enough to keep everything close but loose enough to keep it from being forced away. He had known that being too close would drive them away, but he had forgotten that straying far would let them slip through his hands.


	8. Miranda/Morrigan Conflict

If there was one thing Morrigan knew how to do, Miranda conceded, it was how to shoot.

The woman handled pistols in ways that could only be called impressive. She could take into account ricochet and shoot to prevent it in a near-snap decision, and even at a distance could down a combatant non-lethally with one shot. She seemed to enjoy leg shots more than anything. Maybe it had to do with the thought that maybe, if her victim was unlucky, they wouldn’t be walking anymore.

Right now wasn’t the time to think about Morrigan’s reasons for favoring leg shots though, because several bullets went whizzing past Miranda’s head as she hastily retreated behind cover.

"Are you ready to come out and fight, babysitter?" Morrigan called, excitement apparent in her voice.

"Only if you’re ready to stop trying to shoot my legs off!" Miranda shot back, reloading her pistol and cursing as she realized that she had no more after that.

"How about no guns, then? We could be traditional about it. Fists and legs and teeth only."

Miranda considered it for a moment, before she peeked her head out from behind the crate. Morrigan had both of her 5.56mm pistols holstered, hands held out to show that she was unarmed.

Like hell she was unarmed. Miranda knew better than that. But Morrigan seemed honest for once, and so Miranda took the chance.

"If I find out that Alistair took a vid of us on his Pip-Boy, I’m going to be very, very upset."


	9. Joker/Tali/Morrigan/Alistair Snark Contests

"I call bullshit on that."

"How the hell can you know? You weren’t there, you were probably off somewhere frolicking with your big shiny second-hand power armor."

"Second-hand? Is that supposed to be an insult? I don’t see any power armor factories anywhere. My power armor was pulled off of the dead body of an Enclave bastard I killed myself."

"Yeah, probably one that was already dead."

"Joker, you say that as if you could do any better."

Joker scowled at Tali, who was sitting with her elbows resting on her knees and a grin on her face.

"Hey, I’m the best damned Bighorner rider in the whole world," Joker snapped back. "I don’t know about you, but I don’t think even an Enclave shithead in power armor could withstand being trampled by several hundred pounds of angry hooves."

"That would still be the beast doing your bidding, not you, is it not?" Morrigan asked, looking utterly disinterested in the dick-waving competition that Joker and Alistair were participating in. Joker scowled at that too.

"Hey, I’m the one who steers those ‘beasts’ you ugly b-"

"Joker!"

"What? She is! Look at her, she looks like Urz almost!"

"Are you comparing me to your ‘Commander’s’ filthy little animal?"

"What an insult," Alistair laughed. "Joker, that’s almost too cruel. I wouldn’t compare even that monster of a hound to  _Morrigan_.”

Joker’s “OOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and Alistair’s smirk made Morrigan seriously reach for her pistols holstered at her sides.


	10. Jowan and Harkin

The Warden-Commander may or may not have known Jowan before the rest of the Wardens came to know the man. It’s not rather clear, and the Warden-Commander certainly didn’t seem inclined to tell, so nobody really asked. Another routine stop, trying to fix someone else’s terrible fuck-ups (this time something about radiation leakage, the one thing that they couldn’t just shoot and be done with). And Jowan was there, the catalyst for a series of rather dangerous and frankly deadly situations that almost killed a wealthy rancher out of some misguided reasoning that had to do with someone else’s greed. At least Jowan had the good graces to look apologetic, and the Warden-Commander had spared his life and told him to run. And then, of course, Jowan showed up again, this time at least doing something that wasn’t utterly destructive.

Harkin was a disgrace. Garrus knew the man from his Brotherhood days, and he knew that he hated Harkin. The disgusting son of a bitch, Garrus always said, was a disgrace to the Brotherhood and a disgrace to the entirety of humanity. He lied, cheated, and bribed his way through the Brotherhood, and of course with a lack of people the Brotherhood was reluctant to toss him out to the wastes. But sometimes lines are absolutely crossed, and Garrus was proud that he had been the one to physically throw the man out into the barren wasteland with nothing but a pistol and the clothes on his back.


	11. Chakwas/Wynne Interaction

Wynne never quite understood why a gentle old woman like Karin Chakwas spent her time with a gang like the Normandy. The rest of the Normandy crew were rowdy, loud, and destructive in the messiest of ways, and yet amongst the riff-raff was Doctor Chakwas. She never saw the woman fighting either, and the few times she did catch a glimpse of Karin she was patching someone up with a stern but motherly look on her face.

"You are an odd addition to a gang," Wynne had said once, and Karin had chuckled and agreed with her wholeheartedly. She was indeed an odd addition to a gang whose leader seemed to enjoy near-suicidal forays into "abandoned" buildings and whose members were more than happy to follow the leader on those forays.

"Someone has to look after my children," Karin said with a soft smile. "Well, not my children by blood, but Shepard is like my child. The wasteland is my husband, and the crew are my children."

"Have you known Shepard for very long, then?"

"Longer than any of the others."

Wynne didn’t ask much more than that, because there was a wistful look in Karin’s eyes. Wynne understood that look, and she placed one hand over Karin’s.

"I see," she had spoken simply, and that was enough to convey her understanding.


	12. Leliana/Ashley

Leliana can see the glint of a sniper rifle from one of the makeshift watchtowers, and she’s tempted to wave. She knows that Ashley has her sights trained on her, and she knows how good the woman is with the rifle. Not as good as Leliana was, of course. Oh no, Leliana could outshoot Ashley any ol’ day. Right?

Alistair had refused to answer that question when she’d asked it out loud.

The glint stays completely still, Ashley unmoving and stiff as a board, probably. Leliana decides, against her better judgement, to wave.

A shot goes off and hits the board behind her off to the side a few feet, splintering the wood.


	13. Zevran Killing Kai Leng

There’s a certain satisfaction in an assassination gone right, the momentary feeling of excitement and relief mixed together upon knowing you’ve done it. And yet there’s none of that satisfaction here, at least not that type of satisfaction; Zevran feels a different satisfaction. It’s the satisfaction you get when a dog bites a man after being kicked, when the swindler loses everything he owns to a better man, when a murderer is shot down by a victim’s loved one.

Perhaps it was the Warden-Commander’s fault for getting involved in what was clearly an issue that Shepard had with Kai Leng. Perhaps it was inevitable when someone Zevran himself was rather fond of fell to the other assassin’s blade. The reason really didn’t matter at all, because Zevran had gotten the satisfaction he needed.

Shepard was going to be rather cross, he thought idly to himself as he watched blood bubble out of Kai Leng’s mouth. Shepard probably would have wanted to kill him, but the Commander could live with the fact that Zevran had gotten the kill. Either way, Kai “that slippery bastard” Leng was dead. Or dying, as it was, not quite dead yet but definitely getting there.

"I know you’re a Warden and you’re supposed to hunt the bad guys, but at least let me fire the killing shot?"

Zevran yanked out his two knives before stepping aside, gesturing to the dying man.

"He’s all yours, Shepard."


	14. Ashley Standing on Wrex's Shoulders to Get a Better Shot

"Stand still!"

"I’m standing as still as I can, human!"

Ashley let out a growl of frustration as her shots veered to the right yet again. She kicked Wrex in the shoulder, and shouted in alarm as that caused him to almost knock her off.

"I said stand still!" she shrieked, trying to recover from her near stumble.

"And I said ‘don’t stand on me!’" Wrex roared back, attempting to fire a shotgun with only one arm as his other firmly held onto Ashley’s shin to keep her steady. "But you still chose to use me as a stepladder!"

"Do you propose another solution to this? I see no actual stepladders anywhere!"

"Maybe next time you should think before you chase a group of raiders into a place where we have to play ‘whack-a-raider!’"


	15. Kasumi Gets Caught by Isabela Going Through Aveline's Clothes and Trying to Improve Fashion Choices.

"That answers the question of what color her underwear is, then."

Isabela crossed her arms and smirked. Of course they were almost all white, or at least they had been at one point; the clothes were worn and by now were more of a drab gray. But regardless, Isabela had her answer.

"You have me to thank for that, you know," Kasumi added, picking up one of the pairs of boxers. "If I wasn’t in here, you would never know."

"If I hadn’t caught you, you mean. I  _let_  you come look.”

"I would have found another way in. You know that."

"Maybe. Or maybe Fenris would have caught you and sliced you up. Or maybe he would have done the heart-grab-tear-y thing."

"You really think he could catch me? He’s so little, I’m surprised he’s not blasted back by the recoil on the shotguns he loves to use."

"Well, if not Fenris then Dog certainly would have sniffed you out."

"That lumbering mongrel? He’s so easy to bribe."

"Hmm. Hawke won’t like to hear that."

"Dog likes me. There’s nothing so terrible about that, is there?"

"Well, there is if it means that he’ll let little thieves in-"

The door of the bedroom slammed open, and Kasumi immediately activated her Stealth Boy. Aveline stood there in the doorway, looking very, very unhappy.

"I know you’re there, you sneak-thief! Isabela, I’ll deal with you later, but for now you are-"

With Kasumi cloaked, it made for a rather humorous scene when she shouldered her way past Aveline and made a break for it as Aveline seemingly toppled over apropos of nothing. She let out a scream-yell of frustration and scrambled to her feet, darting off after the Normandy thief.

"I KNOW YOU TOOK MY UNDERCLOTHES! RETURN THEM AT ONCE!"


	16. Duncan and Anderson

The loss of a mentor is difficult. No matter if one is a disciplined peace-keeper or an untamed peace-breaker, it will never be easier for one to lose a mentor.

Duncan and Anderson were both surprisingly similar, Shepard and the Warden-Commander find. And yet they seemed to have raised very different people; perhaps Shepard had been more disciplined when still a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, and perhaps the Warden-Commander had been more untamed before being recruited, but their personalities still clash now. And yet in some ways they are very, very similar.

Duncan and Anderson both had the patience of a saint. Both were like a father to the people they mentored. Both were respected, and loved, and both were taken far, far too soon. Neither were exactly young men, but neither deserved to go when they had.

And neither deserved to go the way they did, bitterly thought both of the ones they mentored.


	17. The Thorian and the Great Oak

The wasteland is full of nasty, nasty things. If the people aren’t trying to kill you, then the animals are. If the animals aren’t trying to kill you, then the plants are. Thankfully, dangerous plants that actively attempt to cause harm are few and far between, but thanks to the damning curiosity of the people who lived before the bombs fell, there are still a few plants out there that would like nothing more than to eat you whole.

Shepard really, really regrets having found the Thorian, and really, really doesn’t regret tearing it to pieces. The thing was nasty, and worst of all, was dangerous because of its spores. If a gust of wind blew through the damaged lab and managed to pick up a few specks, it could have potentially been disastrous.

On the other hand, Hawke doesn’t seem to encounter too many vicious plants. To say that Hawke doesn’t encounter any odd ones though would be very much incorrect. The Great Oak, standing despite the ravages of nuclear war, having broken through the confines of the lab where it was created with twisting roots and branches, simply remains there and happily absorbs sunlight through gaps in the ceiling and what little windows remain intact. Sometimes a few acorns fall, but they drop to the hard concrete and remain there until they rot. The soil outside could not possibly support another tree though, and the Great Oak sadly accepted his lonely fate.

Hawke didn’t know it was possible to feel bad for a tree.


End file.
